'We can find strength'

KINGSTON — In the dim lighting of Sydenham Street United Church, the faint smell of candles and roses mixed with quiet conversation fills the air. Neighbours and friends greet each other cheerily, but they’ve gathered for a sobering event.

As the sun set and the outside darkened Sunday evening, inside the church more than 150 residents attended a ceremony to honour the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Rev. Elizabeth Macdonald welcomed the group to the event that honoured the 14 women killed during the Montreal Massacre in 1989 at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal and missing and murdered indigenous women. The event also remembered local victims such as the Shafia women murdered in Kingston in 2009; Kaitlan Babcock, who was killed in her home on Conacher Drive on June 18, as well as Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam, the victims of a murderous rampage in Wilno, Ont., on Sept. 22.

"When we try to remember this on our own it can be so overwhelming and paralyzing," Macdonald said. "But when we come together in community, with people we know, with people we’re going to get to know, when we come together in community to remember, even the most painful events, even the most horrific actions, when we come together in community we can find strength, we can find comfort, we can find hope.

"It is so important that we gather to remember so that we will be strengthened. So that we will be comforted. So that we will find the hope we need to take action."

Sitting in the front row during the vigil was one of the organizers of the event, Jeannie Quinn, 64, chair of the Kingston Anti-Violence Advisory Council, and survivor of 19 years of domestic violence.

"I was 19 when I got married, which is way too young, and we moved to the country when I was expecting my first baby," Quinn said. "I had no car, I had no job because I was expecting, I was alone. Things would escalate, then they’d die down, build up again, and I just thought it was because he was drinking and it was the alcohol that was making him violent "¦

"Then the last couple of years we were farming he was not drinking and he was still as abusive, if not worse. So I knew it was time to leave "¦ it takes us a while sometimes to figure it all out."

Even after Quinn left, she says her husband attacked her twice more.

"So I’m trying to make something good come out of the bad that I had during my marriage," she said.

Working with the Kingston Anti-Violence Advisory Council, Quinn connects women with the help they need.

"My big thing is to get services and organizations to improve their services for women like me who left," Quinn said. "I didn’t know about Interval House when I left, somebody told me about it so I went there. Then somebody there would tell me about another service that I needed. You shouldn’t have to depend on word of mouth.

"There are also cracks and loopholes through the systems so we’re trying to improve those systems so other women don’t fall through those cracks and loopholes."

Macdonald specifically warned Kingston and the Islands MP Mark Gerretsen, MPP Sophie Kiwala and Williamsville councillor Jim Neill to prepare themselves to be engaged in conversation after the ceremony.

"You are in significant places and we’re glad you’re with us and we’re glad your hear what it is we’re going to be sharing," Macdonald said.

Resources for women experiencing domestic violence include the Kingston Police (613-549-4660), Kingston Interval House (613-546-1777), Kingston General Hospital’s Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Program (613-549-6666, ext. 4880), Sexual Assault Crisis Centre (24-hour crisis line: 613-544-6424 or 1-877-544-6424) and Victim Services of Kingston and Frontenac (613-548-4834). More resources can be found at kpf.ca under the Courts & Offences menu option.